OF A DIFFERENT STATE
Mel Kendrick's clustered black-and-white cast-concrete sculptures in Madison Square Park look like they're on the march up Manhattan Island. Each is about the side of a Mini Cooper stood on end, and all of them radiate a strangely formal uncanniness. They're lumpen warlocks or Cubist chain-gang golems - what Rodin's Burghers of Calais might resemble if they were put through a band saw, turned into Alice in Wonderland chessmen, and allowed to wander (on view through December 31).
JERRY SALTZ
Gallery Chronicle
by James Panero
Several shows this month deserve far more attention than space allows, so here are the best of them, however briefly. When I last reviewed the sculptor Mel Kendrick, another David Nolan artist, I objected to the diminutive scale of the work on view. Kendrick is a constructivist who carves an abstract shape from a wood block, then places the result on top of a base made of the leftover pieces. For an artist who likes to show his hand, sometimes the process gets the better of the product. Not so for a set of monumental sculptures now on view in Madison Square Park. Derived from many of the same forms at his last Nolan show, these outdoor giants executed in poured black-and-white concrete are playful exceptions to the cloying piles that normally pass for public sculpture. To appreciate their power, just visit the park with children around. By climbing through every hole and jumping off every shape of Kendrick's work, they understand the fun of these structures without the need for further explanation.
Five monumental sculptures — cast concrete poured in alternating layers of black and white — were installed this week throughout Madison Square Park, that swath of green space between Madison and Fifth Avenues from 23rd to 26th Street. The exhibition is the work of the New York sculptor Mel Kendrick, who is perhaps best known for his wood objects. These pieces are his first public art project in the city and his first experiment with cast concrete.
"It's a material I've wanted to work with for a long time," he said. "These pieces are all about slicing and reconstructing shapes, sort of like the idea of the old ship in a bottle."
The show's title, "Markers," has many meanings for Mr. Kendrick, including a nod to the black-and-white marble found in Gothic Italian cathedrals as well as a reference to the notion of marking one's place. - CAROL VOGEL